


The Winter Lady

by mademoisellePlume



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Gen, slight crossover with marvel movies, you'll know which one when you finish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 09:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/pseuds/mademoisellePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The month Tomoyo went missing, it began to snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winter Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [albaoaurora (myrtu)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=albaoaurora+%28myrtu%29).



> This was written for Alba's birthday. Happy birthday!
> 
> I would recommend reading while listening to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTPmRMZvtbE

 

The month Tomoyo went missing, it began to snow.

When it started, she checked her cards, just to make sure that The Snow remained sealed, as the torrent of flakes was unusual this early in the season. It had been several years since she’d captured all the cards, and put them under the power of her own star, but something wasn’t right about this storm. She could sense it.

Now crossing the awkward waters of adolescence, Sakura was all long limbs, and her best friend was constantly creating new outfits and adjusting the sizes of old outfits to better fit her.

 

After Tomoyo went missing, Sakura stopped wearing the extravagant outfits, instead wearing her uniform alone, not spending a spare moment to change that could be instead used in scouring the city.

The Fly had never seen so much use, and The Mirror showed her own exhaustion, never returning to card form except at night, living Sakura’s life at school and at home, freeing her to search for her best friend.

Two weeks after Tomoyo vanished, Sakura stopped returning home at night, telling The Mirror to keep going in her impersonation perpetually, and leaving Keroberos to watch over the card. The Sweet kept her fed, and The Flower made large, sweet-smelling beds of blossoms to rest in, hidden inside of The Maze. When she slept, she set The Song to singing in Tomoyo’s voice, in hopes that the way she caught that card could be echoed in reverse order. Tomoyo would seek out her own voice, Sakura knew, just as The Voice had once sought out Tomoyo’s.

A month and a half after Tomoyo vanished, Sakura returned and let The Mirror rest in card format, with no answers for the anxious card. Dejected and terrified for her friend, Sakura went back to school not knowing what else to do. She couldn’t find her.

Her classmates were similarly upset. Everyone loved Tomoyo, the sweet, gracious girl who could smooth over any argument had so abruptly vanished from their lives. But no one felt the pain as deeply as Sakura did. They had been best friends since they were small. Closer than close, and they’d never been apart so long ever before.

“What if she’s dead, Kero?” Sakura asked once, as she put out the cards before her and flipped three over.

The Erase, The Return, The Storm.

“It doesn’t look good.” Kero admitted, but tapped The Return. “This should give you hope, though.”

It didn’t help.

A week after that, things began to happen. Magical beings, some looking like people, some like animals, began to appear and cause mayhem until she found them. When vanquished, they were revealed to be nothing but shadowy ribbons wrapped around each other to create a being under the control of some other magical user.

Sakura worried about how satisfying it was starting to become, to fight something when she felt so helpless. Fighting had never been something she liked to do, and finding an outlet in it suddenly didn’t feel right. She had no energy to track down the other magician, all her resources still spent on looking for Tomoyo, now in ways like haunting her mothers’ house, joining her bodyguards in their own search, putting up signs that pled for news. None of it resulted in anything.

Yue shouted at her once, telling her she was wasting away. She hadn’t realized she’d lost weight. He reminded her of her obligation to the cards, and she could tell he was worried about her by the furrow between his eyebrows. She reached out and touched his cheek. There was no reason to worry about her, but he wouldn’t see sense. Tomoyo was the one who deserved the worry. She might be cold, or alone, or… worse.

She made an effort after that, finished meals once left half-finished. Her cards needed energy. She needed energy, and she knew that. But always before when she was discouraged, Tomoyo had always been there. Feeling like this without that support flying to her side was unfamiliar and extremely disheartening.

The snow kept piling up.

And then whispers came in school. There was a ghost abroad in Japan, moving towards Tomoeda. She was called The Winter Lady, and she left destruction and death in her wake, and nothing could stop her. She was tall and pale, clothed in white furs, and her dark eyes and hair was the only indicator that she wasn’t made of snow herself. Of course, the teacher told them that it was a series of storms, and there was no mysterious lady seen, but it smelt like magic to her. She didn’t care much.

Kero, snug in her bag, told her later that he thought this was who was sending the shadow-creatures to fight her and test her skills.

Sakura nodded. “I’ll have to stop her. She’s hurting people,” she said earnestly, and the determination to fix a problem she had let slide gave her new energy.

Replenishing herself, getting sleep, telling herself this is what would make Tomoyo proud, it all resulted in a far more confident Sakura standing in the streets the night that the biggest storm all winter was predicted to hit.

She was even wearing one of Tomoyo’s outfits, one made for winter, with white fur trim on soft brown fleece. Her staff was out, her magic was replenished, The Mirror was taking her place in her room in case her father checked on her.

There was nothing that could possibly be thrown at her that she wasn’t ready for.

The wind picked up first. It was cold and bitter, and swept right through her to chill her to the bone.

Then the snow began to fall, heavier and heavier, and by the time there was a distant figure in the storm that could be seen, the snow was halfway to her ankles.

Sakura held her wand ready, waiting for the enemy to come close enough to announce her intentions.

The figure moved closer and closer every minute, until Sakura could… see her face…

The wand hit the snow.

“Tomoyo?”

The Winter Lady frowned, her eyes not registering any recognition of the girl before her. “Who the hell is Tomoyo?”

 


End file.
